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Identifying the source of tumour-infiltrating T cells

Immune cells called cytotoxic T cells can recognize and destroy cancer cells. The finding that stem-cell-like T cells exist in tumours, at niche sites that support these cells, could aid efforts to boost anticancer immune responses.
  1. Suman Kumar Vodnala

    1. Suman Kumar Vodnala is at Lyell Immunopharma, South San Francisco, California 94080, USA.

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  2. Nicholas P. Restifo

    1. Nicholas P. Restifo is at Lyell Immunopharma, South San Francisco, California 94080, USA.

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Certain anticancer treatments have been revolutionized by the ability to harness a person’s own immune cells for therapeutic purposes1. Such immunotherapy can result in lasting anticancer responses in people with advanced-stage blood cancers or solid tumours. But not everyone responds. For a variety of cancers, the presence of cytotoxic T cells — immune cells that can kill cancer cells — in a tumour correlates with, but does not predict, an anticancer response and survival. And it is unclear why robust tumour infiltration by T cells occurs in some people, but not in others. Writing in Nature, Jansen et al.2 reveal a previously unknown source of tumour-infiltrating T cells.

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Nature 576, 385-386 (2019)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-019-03670-6

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Competing Interests

The authors are employees of Lyell Immunopharma and hold equity.

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